Mugen

I don't understand this part. Isn't Sunder the Special Effect that allows the attacker to destroy it's opponent's armor ? I have to say I don't really like it either, but it's because I'm used to RQ3's idea that armors can't lose AP.

That's the weapon's Rate of Fire. But it seems the format changed in the latest version of the rules, as it was previously either 1/SR, 1/CR or 1/xCR. 1/SR meant you could fire the weapon twice in a combat round : -once at DEX SR -once DEX+3 SR later 1/CR meant you could only use your weapon once, at DEX SR. 1/xCR meant you could only use your weapon once every x rounds, and prepare your action on (x-1) round prior to your attack.

But that means criticals will never hit outside range 1 to 5. Also, if your skill is, say, 45, your 10s die will be more likely to be even than odd in case of a success(as 0, 2 and 4 are even and only 1 and 3 are odd).

In the part you quote, I was in fact thinking about a Pendragon-style combat system, where there attack and parry roll are combined, not a RT-based one... With Resistance Table, it might possible to take the margin between the roll and the success threshold.

Using the method I proposed above gives similar results, without the burden of having to refer to a (possibly complex) table. Specials and crits are possible on both sides, and if two characters with similar skills are opposed, their respective chance of success is ~50%. I think it's because the roots of RQG system date back from the second half of the 70s, where people had different views on system design, even though RQ was way ahead of its competitors back then. If you look at more recent games such as HeroWars (now QuestWorlds) and Revolution D100, you can find that Spirit Combat has been the foundation of their conflict resolution system.

Yes. I like SoJ, but it always seemed very disconnected from other Cthulhu sources...

A way to reduce the number of rolls is to go Pendragon-style, where there are no Attack/Parry oppositions, but only Skill versus Skill and the best roll hits. You could also go a step further and consider a failure versus failure is not a draw, but that the best roll also wins in this situation. It can also be done using Resistance Table, if you consider that a failure from the active character means the passive one hits him.

Is there any relationship between this book and Secrets of Japan ? Nitpick : the official Japanese name for Call of Cthulhu in Japan seems to be "クトゥルフ神話 TRPG" (Cthulhu mythos TRPG), according to Amazon.

In order to support Monty Python style horses ?

As I was born in 1975, and only started learning English in the mid-80s, I discovered BRP through translations. First StormBringer, then RQ3, as RQ2 was never tranlated. Basically, in my eyes, it was everything I liked in SB, but better. It had more clever solutions, more rules, more possible settings, more everything. It remained my go-to Heroic Fantasy game until the years 2000. I loved how the game seemed to be grounded in 4 cultural systems (Primitive, Nomadic, Barbarian, Civilised) and how it worked with the 3 magic systems (Primitive were Spirit magicians, Nomads and Barbarians mostly Divine or Spirit, and Civilised mostly Sorcerous or Divine). Above everything, Magic is what I loved in RQ3, despite the many flaws of Sorcery (which took me time to discover...). Enchants, POW economy, the variety of non-corporeal beings, etc. Coming from SB, there are countless combat rules I never bothered to apply. Fatigue, throwback, etc. Nowadays, I think it's both lacking some elementary rules (such as the fact skills evolve completely disconnected from each oher, or he lack of a true skill opposition rule) and having too many fiddly bits (localized hit points, Strike Ranks, skill bonuses.

My first experience was with RQ3, where Spirit Magic had success chance based on POW and Divine Magic success chance was almost 100%. Rolling under a Rune for Rune Magic and Spirit Magic being automatic is basically opposite to the logic I've been exposed to... I like the idea from OpenQuest of a Spirit Magic skill which is only rolled in stressful situations. Even though I'd be more inclined to give a huge bonus in non stressful situations (+50%) rather than an automatic success for everyone. In the end what is missing is a means to measure one's ability to keep his mind focused. An INTx5 roll could be used, as a simple approach.

The BGB (p 355) says that Elementals are "traditionnally immune to normal attacks (...)". Which basically means Your BRP Will Vary. 😄

In RuneQuest Spirit Magic both solutions coexist. -BladeSharp adds +X to damage (and +X x5% to attack) and only deals X damage to non corporeal beings. -Fireblade replaces the weapon damage with 3d6, and deals the full 3d6 to non-corporeal bengs.

I'm really not keen on changing the damage bonus like this, as it makes the weapon less and less interesting for people with good stats. And I guess it should not apply to negative modifiers. 😄 In RQ3, STR and DEX requirements were different for the Bastard Sword. You also used either the 1 handed sword skills or the 2 handed sword skills depending on how many hands you used. So, there were no real benefit to use it 2 handed. If you were Strong and Dextrous enough to use it 1 handed, you did. Otherwise, you used it with 2 hands. It also had lower requirements than the real 2H sword The rules for the Katana were in Land of Ninja. Like all other nippon-to in this, it is by default a 2 handed weapon, and its wielder receives a -10% malus when using it 1 handed (well, at least that's what can be seen in the French translation, which was sometimes badly translated...). The prerequisites don't change.

Also note that DCs in oficial adventure modules are certainly set with the PCs level in mind. A DC 15 in an adventure written for level 15 characters would be irrelevant, as it would not be a worthy challenge and just slow the game for no benefit. That's why I spoke of "level appropriate" earlier.

In order to give some comparison points, a character with a bonus of 0 has 30% chance of success versus a DC 25 15. BRP characters tend to have lower chances in skills where they have no experience at all. But the difference between 2 freshly created BRP characters is also very likely to be bigger than with 2 PF level 1s.

Basically, each point on a d20 equals +/-5% on a d100. Just multiply by 5 the difference between the DC and the "average" DC (I think it's 15) and add it or substract it from the skill. For instance, DC 25 is equivalent to a -50% malus (difference between 15 and 25 is 10, x5 = 50). But, again, skills in Pathfinder grow faster than in BRP, and "level appropriate" DCs are going to be quickly very difficult gor BRP characters.

[b]Mongoose[/b]'s first edition of RuneQuest also had "Heroic Abilities" that were basically feats. But there were very few of them. Land of Ninja (for RQ3) had Ki powers, which could work to give non-magical prowess to characters, but you should lower the prerequisites to make them equivalent to feats, as you needed a skill of 90+ to learn them, and they started with a very low skill value.

On surface, it may seem obvious. 4 abilities are an exact match to BRP characteristics and are on a similar 3d6-ish range, and converting d20 bonuses to d100 chances of success is simple. But the use of levels in PF2 makes the game very different from BRP. First, the meaning of Hit Points is very different in both games. In BRP, they're basically "meat points" : losing them means you received a wound. In PF2 and D&D, they're a mix of meat points, will to fight, parry, and ability to "roll with the punches". PF2 also let all your chances of success automatically grow with level, while in BRP skills you don't use or train will remain the same as they were at character creation. You basically can't have a magic lab rat in PF. An experienced wizard will also be better at melee than a level 1 fighter. In short, the best way to convert PF2 to BRP is to rebuild everything using approximatively similar concepts.

French game Légendes used the latin word Phylum/Phylae. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylum https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/phylum

What I mean is that your attempt at statting IJ will always be good and bad at the same time. He's a character in a game where the system is just "whatever the scenarist wants to work succeeds" and with no written stats. I's not a real person with real word data. In short : don't do any modification, it's already good enough. Perhaps calling him "Wyoming Smith", as an example of what an Indiana Jones-type could look like in BRP.

It may seem like a good idea to take a well-known fictional character as an example. But, as everybody has his own view on what should be Indiana Jones abilities and how to translate them in BRP terms, you'll never be able to do an adaptation that pleases everyone. Among other things, IJ is an action movie hero, which means he has physical abilities far beyond a normal human being, on top of being a world class archeologist.

And PF is basically D&D3.6. So, the only game able to rival D&D was just another D&D 🙂 Another goal of the OGL was to protect 3e from being discontinued by WotC, and it was successful at that time.

Yes, definitely, that was one of the goals of the licence. But it was not restricted to one game system, and was used by other game companies for their own systems. OGL is seen as the D&D licence because it was mainly used to sell D&D-compatible products, because it's what people wanted to buy. Concerning ORC, I only know about 3 projects or games. Out of the 3, only BRP is not an attempt to let 3rd party publishers to keep selling D&D products.

It's not a matter of "realism", but rather of suspension of disbelief. 🙂 I was just expressing the fact that it would bother me if mass was not a more important part of the equation. I didn't mean you should change the rule to please me. 😉